The future of the WEC

Ginetta is pulling out of WEC:
www.motorsport.com

Ginetta won't continue factory WEC effort into 2021

www.motorsport.com www.motorsport.com

It seems like Tomlinson was not happy and has decided to pull the plug on the project. He states he's willing to help customer teams, if they are willing to buy the G60s and Chris Dyson is looking into an operation and Tomlinson would be willing to help. As of right now, there will be only four LMP cars when WEC travels to Spa.
 
Besides Toyota, who's left? Perhaps it was a bad idea to abuse the privateer by stacking them up like a row of tomato cans for Toyota to knock over.
 
Doc Austin said:
Besides Toyota, who's left? Perhaps it was a bad idea to abuse the privateer by stacking them up like a row of tomato cans for Toyota to knock over.
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Glickenhaus say they are on track:

Glickenhaus HyperCar Plans “Totally On Track” – “At Least Two Cars” | dailysportscar.com

A lengthy conversation with Jim Glickenhaus yesterday produced a number of very interesting snippets, not all of which are for public consumption just yet. Most importantly all aspects of the SCG 007 LMH ‘Hypercar’ programme, engine, chassis and aero, are well on track despite the difficulties...
www.dailysportscar.com www.dailysportscar.com

At the same time, I have not seen anything updating the situation with Peugeot. I'm a bit slow on the sports car newsfront, but exactly how did the Privateers get hosed @Doc Austin would you happen to give explain this a bit more in detail? I'm seriously behind on some things.
 
I’m not sure running grandfathered-in LMP1 cars for one more year is worth much to begin with. Even more so considering the Ginetta is still a work in progress.

Peugeot aren’t going to debut until 2022 at the earliest, and a week or two ago DSC said they’re leaning in the direction of LMH rather than LMDh. But next year is supposed to be Toyota vs. Glickenhaus.
 
Kiante said:
I'm a bit slow on the sports car newsfront, but exactly how did the Privateers get hosed @Doc Austin would you happen to give explain this a bit more in detail? I'm seriously behind on some things.
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The FIA kept the balance of performance so much in Toyota's favor the privateers never stood a chance. Initially everyone agreed Toyota would be given a favorable BOP of 1/2 second a lap, but it was never that small. Most of the races were savage beatdowns. It was not until last year they initiated an automatic BOP where the wining car would be given ballast weight, but by then it was already too late and most of the teams had already left or planned to leave.

The FIA has a history of protecting the factories and not helping the privateers. They let the costs of the LMP1 hybrid class get so out of hand that even the factories (except Toyota) left, and then the FIA had to create a new class of privateer LMP1 (non hybrids) to compete with the two Toyota entries. All fine and good but it appears they never intended to let the privateers get in the fight, and were essentially lambs led to slaughter.

SPM stated this is specifically why they left, and while Rebellion never gave an explanation, it's not hard to believe this was their reasoning too. Ginetta just never had the money to begin with and their participation was always spotty. This is a horrible shame because they make a really good P2 car and were a great addition with a cool looking car. Dragon Speed missed the first race of the 2018 season when they wrecked a car, and missed another after a second accident. Then they too were in and out of the series until they left to concentrate on their LMP2 and IndyCar programs, because at least those made sense. I may have missed one, but the final piece was of the puzzle was Bykolles, who spent a lot of time getting in the way of the P2 cars and was never considered a serious threat to feature in P1.

LMP1 privateer started off being too expensive or they would have had more entries. As it was, only Rebellion (a prestige watchmaker) had the funding to run well consistently, but now they are out too. They were going to run the Hypercar program for Peugeot, and then a month or so after the announcement they turned around and said they are done, all with no explanation. My guess is they just got sick of being jacked around. Rebellion was not only self funded, but they were consistently the best privateer team in the world for 13 years, and yet the FIA abused their privateers so much they even ran them off. It's a travesty that IMSA didn't make a big effort to get them racing here.

The history of sportscar racing is rich with manufacturer battles, but if you took the privateers out of the mix you would usually end up with just two or three factory teams. The privateer has always been the backbone of sportscar racing because the manufacturers always left whenever it suits them the least and hurts the series the most, kind of like now.

The shining example of sportscar racing for the last four or five years has been the P2 class. Setting aside the fact they are always the stars of the show wherever they race, and how well they always race, this is what happens when you give privateers a chance to win, or at least a fair shake. In P2 you can buy a winning car right off the shelf, execute, and be competitive. As we have seen, in P1 that's just not possible.

IMSA initially used the P2 car as a baseline to BOP all the others to, and we had a great season two years ago with P2 privateer teams winning several races, and a P2 privateer team coming within a handful of point of winning the championship. Of course, while no one is saying it, the manufacturers can't afford to spend all that money and get beat by cars and teams that the car buying public have never heard of, and I am sure they leaned on IMSA to give them their own private playground. So the P2s were neutered and given their own class. As a result, the DPI ranks went from around 18 cars to our current level of seven, which is actually pretty pathetic compared to what we could have had if they just left it alone.

Last year in the ELMS, they had a full season starting grid of 35 prototypes. Granted, about half were P3 cars, but they still looked cool and went like hell. Again, the cost contained P2 car and the privateers were the stars of the show. I was hoping IMSA would do something like this, but again, sanction bodies seem to protect the manufacturers and screw the little guys and as a result we have a pitiful field.

That was a long rant. I hope I didn't leave anything out.
 
This shows how farcical it is to try to try to equate hybrids with conventional cars. They will never get it right.
 
donthaveanickname said:
Toyota could lose Le Mans if they keep this handicap system.
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I believe for Lemans they are going with the rules they way there were for last year's race. No way Toyota goes into Lemans without a huge bop advantage. No way. The FIA sold out to Toyota the moment they knew Porsche wasn't coming back.
 
FLRacingFan said:
The non-hybrids will be grandfathered in for one season against LMH.
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That would be good news if we actually had any teams left. Sure, there's cars sitting around, but you would be mad to buy one and expect a fair BOP. Imagine the gallic embarrassment if one actually won a race against the fancy new cars?

Look, I promise you the FIA and/or WEC, and/or the ACO will completely screw the convergence up. Initially I was hopeful, but the history of France destroying sportscar racing is too deep.
 
Kiante said:
sportscar365.com

Vasselon: LMP1 Equality Would ‘Kill LMH Before it Starts’ – Sportscar365

Toyota technical director stresses that grandfathered LMP1 cars cannot race on same performance level as LMH in 2021...
sportscar365.com sportscar365.com
Lol.
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Can’t say I don’t get it. Toyota and Glickenhaus are spending a lot of money to bring in new cars next year, Peugeot in 2022, and being outrun by an older re-badged ORECA wouldn’t exactly be what they’re paying for. Alpine will have to be dialed back regardless since LMP1 is quicker than what LMH will be. However, the Alpine is supposed to be around for only a year so he’s being a bit dramatic I think. It is almost certainly a precursor to a full-fledged LMH/LMDh in the next couple of years for Alpine, so the idea that they would ruin the class is a bit much.

What I do think is fair is if LMH is slightly quicker than LMP1 next year but with much less faith in reliability, as happens with most new cars.
 
FLRacingFan said:
Can’t say I don’t get it. Toyota and Glickenhaus are spending a lot of money to bring in new cars next year, Peugeot in 2022, and being outrun by an older re-badged ORECA wouldn’t exactly be what they’re paying for. Alpine will have to be dialed back regardless since LMP1 is quicker than what LMH will be. However, the Alpine is supposed to be around for only a year so he’s being a bit dramatic I think. It is almost certainly a precursor to a full-fledged LMH/LMDh in the next couple of years for Alpine, so the idea that they would ruin the class is a bit much.

What I do think is fair is if LMH is slightly quicker than LMP1 next year but with much less faith in reliability, as happens with most new cars.
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That was my issue, Alpine's current car is only supposed to be around for a year. The project they have in place is new with many variables of the project still needing to be sorted. Just be patient and allow these teams to build their respected projects, I just don't understand why Toyota is so up in arms. I just feel as if it's unneccssary to feel this way, give the new teams time to develop, gather data, and continue to build up personnel to be ready for that switch to whatever they want in terms of the LMH or LMDh.

Also, there is someone on the WEC reddit who works for Glickenhaus and has stated Glickenhaus will be ready for Sebring with two cars in March of 2021. For a cool six million dollars, you can race the SCG 007 with everything included:
www.thedrive.com

Want to Race Your Own SCG 007 in the WEC Hypercar Class? That’ll Be $6 Million

That includes the car itself, spares, race support and rebuilds for Sebring, Spa and Le Mans.
www.thedrive.com www.thedrive.com
 
Kiante said:
Here is the grid for the 2021 season:




GTE-Pro is looking a lot like GTLM in IMSA.
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Yep. Factory GTE programs are basically done globally now. But they won’t get rid of it entirely because of how many GTE-Am teams there are still. Might not go away until 2023 or 2024 because of that, but what the hell does that mean for the pro classes? It’d be an easy fix if there weren’t so many Porsches in there. Aston Martin and Ferrari can be converted between GTE and GT3 spec easily because they were built with that intention, 911s can’t.
 
FLRacingFan said:
Yep. Factory GTE programs are basically done globally now. But they won’t get rid of it entirely because of how many GTE-Am teams there are still. Might not go away until 2023 or 2024 because of that, but what the hell does that mean for the pro classes? It’d be an easy fix if there weren’t so many Porsches in there. Aston Martin and Ferrari can be converted between GTE and GT3 spec easily because they were built with that intention, 911s can’t.
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I did not know the 911s were all different spec from one another.

No, I'm being 100% serious. Crazy to think Porsche would not make a GTE to cut costs, but when you have so many customers throughout the world. I guess they could care less about that aspect?
 
Kiante said:
I did not know the 911s were all different spec from one another.

No, I'm being 100% serious. Crazy to think Porsche would not make a GTE to cut costs, but when you have so many customers throughout the world. I guess they could care less about that aspect?
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Pretty much, they have so many customers that they can make a more expensive GTE and people still eat them up and run them. From November this says they delivered 10 brand new cars for WEC and ELMS 2021, so those investments are probably going to be protected for at least a few years.

New Porsche GTE Customer Cars Testing At Portimao Today

New Porsche GTE Customer Cars Testing At Portimao Today
www.dailysportscar.com www.dailysportscar.com
 
Glickenhaus is not f*cking around with the driver lineup:
racer.com

Glickenhaus fills out Hypercar driver roster

Glickenhaus Racing has announced the remainder of its driver line-up for the 2021 FIA World Endurance Championship as the U.S.-flagged team prepares to take on the might of Toyota in the WEC’s new-…
racer.com racer.com

Gustavo Mendes
Ryan Briscoe
Oliver Pla
Romain Dumas
Richard Westbrook
Franck Mailleux

The driver lineup is extremely good for the new team.
 
Kiante said:
The Glickenhaus 007 lives:


Its going to turn heads on the track with that TT'charged V8 alone.

Can't wait to see it in action.
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If not this year then at least next year I’ll have to follow WEC more again. Peugeot have a really solid driver lineup for 2022.
 
Kiante said:
Wow, this LMH field is starting to really take shape.
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I should’ve left this in the other thread probably but things are definitely picking up quickly, assuming everyone with an LMDh goes that should be at least seven factories at Le Mans in 2023, WEC has at least four in their top class full season and IMSA at least three. It’s setting up to be the best era of the 21st century, maybe since Group C/GTP.
 
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Yep, I'm a Glickenhaus stan.

Yes, yes, yes lord.
 
This seems like another season to punt on now. Glickenhaus weren’t ready for Portimao when that was supposed to be the opener, now they’re not ready for Spa either. In fact, they have no plans beyond Le Mans anymore - just Portimao, Monza, and Le Mans. Sounding very much like Ginetta at the moment. Peugeot better turn up in a big way in 2022.
 
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